Exit from the International Space Station

Two members of the International Space Station’s crew of six astronauts embarked on an exit into space in the context of modernizing the electrical system of the orbital outpost.

These two elements of the crew, made the orbital exit of the IEE, Friday January 6, 2017, an exit to the space, to be able to carry out works of modernization of the electrical system of the orbital outpost, for which it is necessary its Intervention abroad.

US astronaut Shane Kimbrough, 50, crew commander, and his mission colleague Peggy Whitson, 57, a flight engineer, emerged from the station’s decompression chamber at 12:23 PM (same time in Lisbon) For an expedition that is expected to last approximately six and a half hours, said the NASA television commentator who broadcast live footage of the exit.

The two astronauts were commissioned to install adapters and make the necessary electrical connections of six new lithium batteries, which should last until 2024, the time that will last the exploration of the station. A second orbital exit to complete work is scheduled for January 13, again with the performance of Shane Kimbrough and also Frenchman Thomas Pesquet, 39, of the European Space Agency.

In this first exit, Kimbrough and Whitson are helped by Pesquet and the Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy from the interior of the station. The set is organized and coordinated from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Much of the station’s complex modernization work is performed by controllers at the NASA space center in Houston with the help of the robotic arm of the International Space Station, Canadarm2.

This Friday’s mission is the 19th space exit for the assembly and maintenance of the International Space Station, whose first module was placed in orbit in 1998. The station was completed about 10 years later.